


it's a love story, baby, just say yes

by fireblazie



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-11
Updated: 2013-07-11
Packaged: 2017-12-19 03:12:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/878749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireblazie/pseuds/fireblazie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras says, “Combeferre and I have selected three potential plays for our next production: <i>Twelfth Night, Doctor Faustus,</i> and <i>Hamlet</i>.”</p><p>“<i>Phantom of the Opera</i>,” the stranger in the back of the room says suddenly. “People love that sort of thing. Put on anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber and you’ll be sold out.” He smiles, slowly. “Promise.”</p><p>(Or: In which Enjolras is the leader of a group of theatre students that stages a production at the local theatre twice a year for free, and Grantaire shows up to rehearsal one day with his guitar and his Taylor Swift songs and everything quickly goes to hell.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's a love story, baby, just say yes

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies in advance to anyone who knows, uh, anything about putting together a production in the theatre. I have no experience whatsoever in that arena, so things are pretty vague on purpose.

 

 

Enjolras, contrary to popular belief, does not actually live in the theatre. It’s just that even when he’s _out_ of the theatre, he spends most of his time talking and thinking and living and breathing—the theatre.

(He didn’t choose this lifestyle; this lifestyle chose him.)

He heads a group of theatre students (apart from Feuilly, who actually works as a stagehand) that stages a production at the local theatre twice a year. Tickets are always free to their shows, with the goal of providing an authentic theatre experience for those who might not always be able to go. He believes that the theatre should be open to _everyone_ , and he’d started this group with that cause in mind. They call themselves Les Amis (he can’t remember whose idea that was) and they’re well-respected, if not entirely well-known.  They tend to put on the classics, but every now and then they’ll venture into something a little more modern. Still, Enjolras favors the classics (Shakespeare is by far his favorite, but he has a soft spot for Hugo, too) and so they end up doing those works more often than not.

“ _Doctor Faustus,”_ suggests Combeferre, flipping through a stack of potential plays for their summer production.

“ _Macbeth_ ,” counters Enjolras after a brief pause.

“ _Hamlet,_ ” says Combeferre absentmindedly. He pauses at a particular sheet of paper. “Courf’s been after us to do _The Importance of Being Earnest_ ,” he murmurs. “We could do a comedy for once, you know.”

Enjolras hums. “We could,” he agrees, but of course goes with Shakespeare. “ _Twelfth Night,_ then.”

They don’t make their final decision by the end of that evening, but they’ve narrowed their options down to three, and there’s a meeting tomorrow afternoon, so they’ll put it to a vote then. Enjolras returns to the apartment he shares with Combeferre in a considerably better mood, glad to have crossed something off his endless list.

 

*

 

There is an unfamiliar man in the back of the theatre, and Enjolras is distracted by him and the way he watches Enjolras’ every move. But he lives and breathes theatre, and is used to being center-stage. His main goal is to have people staring and watching and taking notice, so he ignores his disconcerting stare and focuses on the matter at hand.

Enjolras says, “Combeferre and I have selected three potential plays for our next production: _Twelfth Night, Doctor Faustus,_ and _Hamlet_.”

“ _Phantom of the Opera_.”

He isn’t thrown off-guard very easily, but today seems to be one of those days. He pinpoints the source of the voice and turns a severe stare on the stranger in the back of the room. “Excuse me?”

An easy shrug. “People love that shit,” he explains, “put on anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber and you’ll be sold out.” He smiles, slowly. “Promise.”

Enjolras thinks he can feel his left eye beginning to twitch.

“You’ll be the Phantom, of course,” the stranger barrels on.

“And I suppose you would be Raoul,” he snaps back.

“I would be a very dashing Vicomte de Chagny,” the stranger concedes, and Enjolras hears Éponine fail to muffle a snort.

“We don’t perform musicals here,” he says, stiffly.

“How elitist of you,” is the slightly offended reply, and Courfeyrac lets out a bark of laughter from the front row.

“R,” he says between laughter, pivoting in his seat to face the back, “come on, before you give our fair leader an aneurysm.”

“Just a thought,” R grins, and Enjolras feels irritation pool in the pit of his stomach as he watches him saunter towards the front of the room at Courfeyrac’s beckoning.

Because, really, what the hell kind of name is R, anyway?

 

*

 

R—otherwise known as Grantaire, he learns—shows up at their meetings for the rest of the week, gradually moving closer to the front of the room. To Enjolras’ great annoyance, the closer he draws, the louder he gets.

(“He doesn’t even _go_ here,” he bursts out after one particularly grueling meeting, earning himself a raised eyebrow from Combeferre.)

“I changed my mind. You guys should do _Wicked_ ,” Grantaire suggests once the group decides on _Hamlet,_ “with our righteous leader playing Elphaba, off to expose the corruption of the Wizard.”

“Back off,” Éponine says, nudging him playfully with an elbow, “that would be my role.”

“My apologies,” says Grantaire with a charming grin, “but you should consider it, seriously. It would be a lot more exciting than, ah, the _Bard_ ,” he drawls the last word with undisguised distaste and Enjolras has had it, really. He clears his throat, projects his voice across the room, and demands, “Why are you even here?”

The room, which had previously been filled with murmurs and chattering, abruptly falls silent.

Enjolras pins his gaze directly on Grantaire, with his messy hair and messy clothes and messy everything. “Do you want to join? If you do, you need to audition.” his voice quiets in volume, but not in intensity. “You show up here, out of the blue, make unnecessary comments on everything, and I do mean _everything_ , but you’re not even a member. I fail to see what you’re getting out of this.” His mouth twists into something harsh. “Do you even like the theatre? If you have nothing to contribute, leave.”

Like this, Grantaire’s eyes are wide and bright, and an expression flickers over his face that makes it less sharp and angular. Enjolras doesn’t know what that means, but a pang of some unidentifiable emotion hits him. He remains where he is, though. He’s never been good at apologies.

“He has spoken,” Grantaire intones, and he looks like himself again. He stands up and slings the frayed straps of his messenger bag over his shoulder. “I’ll leave you to your rehearsing then.”

“R, no,” Éponine starts, and Courfeyrac moves towards him too, but Grantaire shakes his head.

“It’s fine,” he says cheerfully, “I ought to, I don’t know, do homework every once in a while, yeah? I’ll see you two in class tomorrow.”

So that’s how they know each other, Enjolras realizes belatedly.

Éponine turns to him with a furious glare as Grantaire makes his exit, and Courfeyrac looks deeply unhappy, but it’s Cosette who sighs and says, “Sometimes you can be a real dick, Enjolras.”

He ignores her and continues with the rest of the meeting.

 

*

 

Enjolras contemplates speaking to Grantaire about what had happened yesterday for about eight minutes before he turns up at rehearsal yet again the following afternoon at four-fifteen sharp. Everyone in the room watches them both without a word.

“I’m here to audition,” Grantaire explains as he approaches the stage, and Enjolras thinks this is the first time they’ve stood so close to each other. This close, he can smell the whiskey on Grantaire’s breath, and he turns away.

Les Amis has an open-door policy, and pretty much everyone who auditions and works and genuinely wants to be there gets in, no questions asked. Sometimes they don’t even hold auditions.

“Do you have a guitar I can use?” he’s asking now. Enjolras frowns.

“A guitar?”

“I’m going to sing, but I forgot my guitar,” Grantaire says, smiling with just enough attitude to make Enjolras want to shove him off the stage. “Unless you’d like me to butcher the words of the Bard? Suppose I could give it a shot.” He clears his throat and flings his arms open wide. “ _I see Queen Mab hath been with you. She is…_ uh, something about fairies and shit,” and Enjolras thinks, yes, this is it, I am going to tackle him and—

"Sorry, no.” Combeferre steps in smoothly. “We have a piano, though, just off to the side.” He points to where an old keyboard had been hidden behind the curtains. “You’re welcome to use that, if you like.”

Grantaire tilts his head to the side. “Not so good at piano,” he admits, but makes his way towards the instrument anyway, playing a scale. He knows where middle C’s at, at least. He looks up towards the audience, exchanges a conspiratorial wink with someone (Courf, more than likely), and begins.

 _“I remember when we broke up, the first time_ ,” and Enjolras recognizes the damn song from Courfeyrac and Marius’ never-ending playlists of Top 40 songs and for fuck’s sake, is he really singing this?

“ _We! Are never, ever, ever, ever! Getting back together!”_ He hadn’t lied; he’s not so good at the piano, playing simple blocked chords throughout the whole thing, but it ends up showcasing his voice, and he’s surprisingly good.

He finishes to tumultuous applause, and it’s become only too apparent that he has won over the entire crowd. Enjolras can feel the beginnings of a migraine at his temple, and figures he ought to just get it over with, welcome him into the group and—

“Just kidding.” Grantaire slides off the seat. “I’m not at all interested in acting, but if you need someone behind the scenes, maybe?” He shrugs. “I study art. And I’m good at making things. So I could help design sets and the like, if you want.”

How, Enjolras distantly wonders, has Grantaire managed to throw him off twice in the span of five minutes? There are a million things he’d like to say, most of them thoroughly unpleasant, but he remembers the disappointment on Courfeyrac and Éponine’s faces, and Cosette calling him a dick (which, honestly, won’t be the last time), so he accepts. “We’d love to have you,” he says at last, “we certainly need all the help we can get around here.”

Grantaire smiles, slow and easy, and is unusually good for the duration of the meeting, keeping his comments to a minimum. When they wrap up, he lingers, bidding the rest of the group casual goodbyes. Eventually, it’s just the two of them left, and Enjolras suppresses a sigh.

“Thanks for letting me in,” Grantaire says, “didn’t think you would, you know.”

“I am nothing if not fair,” Enjolras replies, because it sounds safest.

Grantaire looks at him. “True enough.” They walk out of the building in silence, down the sidewalk to the bus stop. Grantaire doesn’t say anything more, and Enjolras doesn’t exactly feel like talking, so he takes out his iPod and shoves the ear buds into his ears, idly scrolling through his music.

A bus comes to a slow, creaking stop in front of them. Grantaire fishes his travelcard out of his pockets. He raises a hand to him, and Enjolras spares him a curt nod of acknowledgment before turning away.

“You should write your own plays, you know?” Grantaire says suddenly, stopping to let another student board the bus first. “You just, I don’t know, you have so much to say. Wouldn’t you like to perform your own words rather than somebody else’s?”

Enjolras turns abruptly at his words, but Grantaire has already gone, stepping onto the bus and swiping his card through the reader. He grabs a seat towards the back, and waves at Enjolras through the window as the bus pulls away.

Enjolras stares after the bus for longer than he’ll ever admit.

 

*

 

He enjoys writing the most.

He loves words, always has, savors the way that a few letters arranged _just so_ can transform into something new and powerful, can be as lovely as one of Shakespeare’s sonnets or as terrifying as one of Poe’s short stories. He loves the art of storytelling, telling tales, hearing them as well, but there is nothing quite like the exhilaration of seeing the words unfold on stage.

He was nine when his parents took him to see _Romeo and Juliet_ , and while most children his age would have tolerated the story at best, he’d been enthralled. He’d proceeded, in his bullheaded way, to consume every play by Shakespeare he could find, and after that, had gone on to read Marlowe and Aristophanes and Voltaire and whatever else he could get his hands on.

It’s been years since then and he still reads anything and everything, only now he puts most of his effort into the stage itself. He likes being on stage, is perfectly comfortable shedding his skin and settling into another. He’s passionate and handsome and has an excellent memory. He is, as many of his teachers have said, a natural on stage.

But, _god,_ he wants to write. He wants to write things that will change theatre, change the world. He wants to write things that will move people, make them re-examine their lives, make some other nine-year-old boy fall in love with the stage and all it has to offer. 

So he does. He writes, endlessly, fills notebook after notebook with his words. When he gets his first laptop, he writes even more, a multitude of Word documents accumulating on his hard drive. Combeferre buys him an external hard drive for his nineteenth birthday, the first of many, and he fills that up in an unsurprisingly short amount of time.

It’s still not good enough.

Combeferre sighs at him when he gets like this, and Courfeyrac looks genuinely bemused whenever he brings it up, because they’ve read everything he’s written, and they’re always sincere in their compliments. To be fair, he _does_ like his writing. He wields words with a natural grace, and he knows his writing is solid. He’s proud of all his works. But he knows that he’s capable of more, and he’s determined to keep trying, even if it drives him and everybody else around him insane.

(Combeferre says, after a particularly bad night, “Maybe you think too much.”

To which Enjolras gives him a disbelieving stare. “Now is hardly the time to tell me to stop.”

“I was just thinking about your quest to write your one great play.” There’s warmth in his voice, and it brings a small smile to Enjolras’ lips, despite the frustrations of that evening.

“Do you have any words of wisdom for me?”

“I might,” Combeferre says, reaching for one of Enjolras’ notebooks. “You see this?” He flips to the last page that contains writing. “Scratch-outs, everywhere. There’s not a single sentence that hasn’t been carefully and precisely edited. Which, of course, is fine. It’s great. It’s _you._ But have you considered that maybe that’s what’s hindering you? That maybe, if you just sat and wrote it all in one fell swoop, without your compulsive editing, you might end up with what you’re looking for? Not fixing what’s not broken, and all that.” He smiles wryly at him. “We’ve all read your stuff, and it’s excellent. And we _mean_ it. You’re your own worst critic, you know.”

Enjolras gives him a considering look. “I’ve never written that way before.”

“Maybe you should try.”)

He thinks of that night as he turns on his laptop and opens up a new document. He gets as far as one paragraph before he gives into the impulse to edit his four sentences, adjusting certain phrases until they flow more smoothly. Then he realizes what he’s done again, and sighs heavily. Maybe Combeferre was wrong about this. He shuts his laptop and sinks back against the couch, staring at the ceiling.

_You just, I don’t know, you have so much to say._

“And you don’t?” he mutters at the ceiling. Combeferre finds him in the same position an hour later and plops down next to him, mimicking his position.

“What are we looking at?” he asks, curious.

Enjolras sighs. “Nothing.”

 

*

 

Most days, Enjolras loves Courfeyrac like family (more than most of his actual family, if he’s being entirely honest), but there are days when he’d like nothing more than to throttle him.

Today is one of those days.

“Let’s _reinvent the genre_ ,” Courfeyrac waves his hands animatedly, pacing back and forth across the stage. They’ve shifted the keyboard so that it’s more visible on stage, now. “So that scene in _Hamlet?_ Where he’s all like, _get thee to a nunnery_? Instead of that, we should do what R did, and—” He hops over to the piano, sits, plays a quick, jazzy intro, and then: _“We are never ever ever getting back together!_ ” He shoots Enjolras a wide, bright grin. “Good, yeah?”

“No,” says Enjolras flatly.

Courfeyrac’s face falls, but only a little. “It would be amazing, though. Can you imagine? Totally unexpected.”

“It’s—” Enjolras starts.

“Kind of a good idea,” interrupts Combeferre, and Enjolras slowly turns to face him with a wounded look. “But hear me out. You’ve always wanted to do something fresh and new and inspired. You’ve always wanted to do something different, it’ll pull in the younger crowd, you know it will, and—oh, for Christ’s sake, Enjolras, don’t look at me like that.”

“I am giving you precisely the look that you deserve,” says Enjolras waspishly. “We are _not_ turning _Hamlet_ into a musical.”

“I like it,” Cosette pipes up, “it’s different,” and Marius echoes his agreement.

“I think they did something like that, in America,” he says, vaguely.

“Oh, yes, because if the Americans did it then we _must_ follow suit,” snaps Enjolras, to no avail. They put it to a vote, and the group as a whole is apparently charmed by the whole idea. Enjolras casts betrayed expressions on them all, and scowls at Grantaire, sitting yet again towards the back. He’s been oddly quiet today.

Once the meeting has wrapped up (and they’ve spent a solid fifteen minutes discussing how they could possibly use Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” as Hamlet and Ophelia’s love theme and Enjolras has spent fifteen-and-a-half minutes refraining from banging his head against the nearest wall), Enjolras stalks to Grantaire’s side and says, “I suppose you’re happy now.”

Grantaire grins. “Oh, I am. I am absolutely _ecstatic_.”

 

*

 

Enjolras ends up watching Grantaire more often than he’d like. Initially, he’d thought that Grantaire would only come to the first couple of rehearsals and then quickly drop out, but he just… keeps coming back. He makes no secret of his disdain for the theatre (“I don’t know, man, if I wanted to watch something, I’d go see a fucking movie, you know?”), and Enjolras throws him thinly veiled glares each time he so much as _looks_ like he’s about to say something negative, but he still shows up. Every time.

What Enjolras quickly realizes is that Grantaire is _smart_. Not necessarily in terms of academics (he apparently enjoys skipping class far too much for that), but he knows his stuff, can recite trivial facts about obscure Baroque paintings from memory, can whip out references to classic Greek philosophy half-drunk and stumbling on his own two feet. Enjolras is, grudgingly, impressed.

But Grantaire is best when he is working. Enjolras supervises all the work that goes into their productions, of course he does, and so he sees all that Grantaire does, sees the models he builds and the sketches and the paintings and the carpentering. It is, he’ll admit, disconcerting to see someone who’d crashed one of their meetings ( _Phantom of the_ fucking _Opera,_ he will never forget that) put so much effort into something he probably couldn’t care less about. But he _had_ meant it when he’d said they could use all the help they could get.

He asks Combeferre about it once, but “I’m sure he has his reasons,” is the only thing he’ll say with a casual shrug.

Still, Enjolras likes having answers, and he catches himself wondering about it from time to time.

Then again, maybe it’s not any of his business. Grantaire can take care of himself, can make his own decisions, and Enjolras doesn’t _care_ , so he shoves the thought out of sight and throws himself head-first into his work.

He shows up at the theatre earlier than usual one afternoon when his last seminar for the day gets cancelled, not expecting to see anybody else there. But he’s wrong, and there are a handful of them on stage, working on set designs. Feuilly’s bent over a half-painted construction of wood, Bahorel’s lugging in materials from off-stage, and Grantaire is perched on a large crate, strumming his guitar. His back is to Enjolras, and he distantly notes the way his muscles tense beneath his short-sleeved shirt as he plays.

 _“And love is not a victory march, it’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah,_ ” he sings, and Enjolras thinks that if he had sung this instead of that _other_ song, he’d have been a lot more accepting.

But maybe Grantaire had known that.

He lets the last chord die off in the air to scattered applause from the others working near him, hops off the crate, and catches sight of Enjolras standing at the back of the theatre. The widening of his eyes is so slight that Enjolras barely detects it, and even then he still thinks it might have just been a trick of the light.

“Not bad,” he says.

Grantaire sets his guitar down against the crate he’d sat on, and smiles at him, pleased. Enjolras smiles back and climbs on stage to join them.

 

*

 

The peace doesn’t last long.

“It’s such a stupid play, though,” Grantaire hollers from the back of the room, and Enjolras freezes where he’d been running lines with Cosette. She knows him well, and darts out a hand to wrap tightly around Enjolras’ wrist.

“Don’t,” she hisses, and to his credit, he does try to rein in his temper.

Grantaire doesn’t stop there, though. “And Hamlet! God, he’s such an asshole—a glorified angsty teenager. I might as well watch _Glee_ reruns, right?” He pauses briefly for breath. “Speaking of which, I don’t understand why musicals aren’t performed more around here, anyway. S’like you lot don’t think they’re classy enough, or something. Which I disagree with entirely; you not only have to memorize lines, you have to be able to carry a damn tune and dance across stage without falling on your face.” He glances around at them, smirking. “Far more impressive than some plays written by a bunch of dead guys.”

Cosette’s grip tightens on him, but Enjolras shakes it off with ease, whipping his head around to pin Grantaire with a furious glower.

“Why do you come here?” He is in front of Grantaire in a few quick strides. He can smell the alcohol on him. “You clearly abhor the theatre, you’ve made no secret of your feelings for Shakespeare and this play, your work is subpar—” That’s a lie, but it’s out and he has no intention of taking it back.

If Grantaire was hurt by it, he doesn’t show it. He idly picks at a piece of lint on his sleeve. “If you don’t know by now,” he says, indifferently, “then I won’t tell you.”

“You—” Enjolras begins, but Courfeyrac slings an arm around him and practically shoves a copy of the play in his face.

“I had a question about the delivery of this line,” he says, gently but firmly leading him away. “Guide me, o captain.”

Enjolras knows exactly what he’s doing. He looks at Grantaire one last time, a cold mask of indifference settling on his face as he allows Courfeyrac to pull him aside. Grantaire’s nonchalant expression flickers at the sight of it, as Enjolras loses interest in him altogether, but then resumes its place. Enjolras focuses his attention on the surprisingly legitimate questions Courfeyrac actually has for him, and doesn’t speak to Grantaire for the rest of the rehearsal.

 

*

 

He sits down in front of his laptop later that night and writes for hours. Combeferre leaves a plate of food next to him, but he takes only a few bites in between frantic typing, and the rest of it goes cold.

Nearly ten thousand words later, he stops and reads it all from the beginning. For the first time, he hasn’t rewritten and edited every other sentence. It’s not perfect, and there are things he’ll need to check on, some extra research that still needs to be done, but for the first time in a long time, he looks at his words—and smiles.

 

*

 

In some small corner of his mind, Enjolras had assumed that Grantaire only existed in the space of the theatre, so when he runs into him at the Sainte-Geneviève library, strolling through the shelves, all he can do is say, “Oh.”

Grantaire raises his eyebrows. “Oh?”

“Just haven’t seen you here before, that’s all.”

“I try to stay away if I can,” says Grantaire wryly, reaching up to grab a book from the shelf. He flips through it briefly. “It’ll do,” he murmurs, and turns back to face Enjolras. “Busy afternoon?” he glances at the books Enjolras has tucked against his side.

“Yes.” He shifts the books around to get a better grip on them. “Yours as well, I suppose.”

Grantaire shrugs. “Not necessarily. We could—get coffee?” He asks, flippant.

“No.” Enjolras stares at the hole in Grantaire’s shirt, at the hem of his sleeve, right at his bicep. “I’m swamped, really.”

And Grantaire smiles his stupid smile at him. “Pity,” he states, “next time, maybe.”

“Maybe,” echoes Enjolras. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“That you will,” promises Grantaire as he leaves.

 

*

 

(For Grantaire, it starts like this:

He finds himself sprawled across the lawns of the Luxembourg Gardens late on a Saturday night, a bottle of wine clutched tightly in his hands. He tosses his head back and stares up at the stars.

It’s been an awful day, but then again, when isn’t it? His art professor has ripped his latest painting to shreds—metaphorically, not quite literally, though, _ha_ , he snorts, _might as well have_ —and  he’d cracked the screen of his phone, which is magnificent, clearly.

“Just can’t win, some days,” he sighs, and lifts the bottle up to his lips.

Across from the garden gate is a theatre. He’s never been—it’s not really his thing—but he passes by it on his way to and from school, sees flyers for their latest productions every now and then, and he’s got classes with a couple of people who are part of Les Amis, or whatever it is they call themselves.

The lights are usually on when he passes by at night, and whoever’s in there is loud enough that he can hear their voices from the outside. It’s at this point that he decides that he really, _really_ needs to pee, so, bottle swinging perilously from his right hand, he shoves the door open with his left shoulder and steps into the theatre for the first time.

He blinks at the walls for a couple of seconds (decorated with abstract posters of various classical tragedies) before remembering what he’d come in here for in the first place. He wobbles around clumsily, trying to decide where a bathroom would probably be.

And then he hears singing.

Drunken singing, from the sound of it, and hey, he knows drunken singing. He draws closer to the source, turns a corner and finds a group of students around his age sitting in various states of disarray on stage, laughing and singing and drinking all at once.

Jehan, he recognizes, sitting at a clunky old keyboard next to someone he doesn’t know. They’re playing something that vaguely sounds showtune-ish. Feuilly, sitting near the curtains, hollers, “Enjolras, sing for us!”

“I don’t sing,” someone Grantaire assumes is Enjolras replies, sounding affronted. He can only see his back, but he looks tall and lean, wearing a well-fitted red plaid shirt.

“Boooo,” somebody else shouts.

“Come on,” someone—Marius? Grantaire isn’t sure—pleads, “Just one!”

“I will perform one of my favorite works for you,” Enjolras graciously allows, and the rest of them groan in response.

But he is undeterred, and climbs atop a large wooden crate, turning to face the rest of the group. His face is alight with passion as he starts. Grantaire vaguely recognizes the speech.

_“If we are marked to die, we are enough to do our country loss; and if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honour.”_

Grantaire straightens up, the alcohol seeming to fade away, and fuck it all but he’s completely enthralled. _God._ He doesn’t even like Shakespeare.

But this Enjolras, whoever ( _whatever)_ he is, is just _absurdly_ beautiful when he performs, blazing with such fervor and intensity that he’s practically breathless with it. Words that had seemed empty when printed across a page somehow seem to come alive when they fall from his lips, and Grantaire’s never particularly cared for the theatre, but if this is what it has to offer, then maybe he needs to re-evaluate his opinions.

 _“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.”_ Enjolras is smiling at the others, firm and encouraging, and Grantaire can’t help but think, rather numbly, that he could have died for this man in another life.

He’s just ridiculously, incredibly— _bright_.

“R!” Grantaire spins around to see Courfeyrac smiling at him and pulling him into a loose embrace. “What are you doing here? Hey, give me that.” He reaches for the nearly empty bottle, takes a swig, and returns it promptly. “Oh, good stuff.”

“Only the best for me,” Grantaire returns, and darts his eyes back towards the stage. Courfeyrac catches it, damn him, and nudges him with his shoulder.

“Come on Friday,” he says. “Four o’clock.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” says Grantaire sincerely, and so he shows up that Friday at their rehearsal, mostly to see if his vision of Enjolras had been enhanced by the alcohol in any way. It hadn’t been, but he’s not exactly surprised.)

 

*

 

Cosette, playing Gertrude, brings the cup of poison to her lips and sets it aside as she watches Enjolras and Bahorel (as Laertes) fight. They land choreographed hits on each other, groping hurriedly for their fallen swords and ending up with the wrong ones in the process. Cosette gasps, clutching at her throat, before her knees give out and her eyes roll back and she breathes her last. There’s a beat of silence as everyone takes it all in, and then—

_“It’s too late to apologize! It’s too late! I said, it’s too late to apologize!”_

Enjolras freezes as Grantaire continues to sing from backstage. Cosette opens an eye and starts giggling. He catches Combeferre’s eye, whose lips twitch into a poorly hidden grin.

“I don’t know about that one,” Grantaire says when he emerges, “I think I could find us a better song.”

“Something a little more hardcore,” Éponine agrees.

“Like something heavy metal?” suggests Marius.

“Nononono,” Courfeyrac actually flails, which looks doubly ridiculous considering he’s in costume. “ _Justin Bieber._ ”

Grantaire claps a hand to his heart. “This is why I love you,” he proclaims, very sincerely.

“What the ever-loving fuck,” says Enjolras.

“Shh.” Grantaire shushes him. Grantaire actually fucking _shushes_ him. “We are discussing musical choices for our production.”

“I will hurt you,” Enjolras deadpans, before turning to the rest of them. “Due to— _democracy_ —” and if it sounds like it is physically hurting him to say this, it’s because it damn well is, “I have decided to go along with your idea to—to add a few song selections, but I insist on giving final approval to all song choices, and there is no way in hell that you are going to play Justin Bieber during the final scene of _Hamlet_.”

Grantaire raises a hand to his head and salutes him. “As you wish, my captain.”

Enjolras narrows his eyes at him. “I mean it.”

Grantaire holds his hands out in a placating gesture. “Hey, I get it. Nothing by the Biebs in the final scene. Gotcha.”

Enjolras pinches at the bridge of his nose. “Let’s have a break,” he says gruffly, and exits the stage.

“It was quite good, though.” Combeferre catches up with him quickly. “That last scene. Cosette was brilliant, don’t you think?” Enjolras starts to answer, but stops abruptly.

“There’s still Madonna,” Grantaire stage-whispers, and Combeferre determinedly marches Enjolras towards the door before he can run back inside and throttle him.

 

*

 

They go over to Courfeyrac’s that night, bringing with them entirely too much take-out from the Chinese place just down the street. It’s only a matter of moments before everyone finds a place on his living room floor, easy and comfortable, cluttering the space with chopsticks and stained napkins, chattering loudly as they dig into the food.

“Put on Eurovision,” Bossuet hollers from the kitchen, and Jehan obliges him.

“No,” tries Enjolras, but even he knows it’s a failure from the start. Ten minutes in and everybody’s screaming obscenities at the screen, laughing hysterically and flinging crumbs everywhere. It’s a miracle nobody chokes on their food.

Fifteen minutes later, he decides he’s had enough. There’s just—there’s just too much _glitter_ , for his taste, and he slips away to Courf’s tiny balcony, grimacing at the bird droppings that line the railing. It’s quieter, at least, and he can actually hear himself think.

He’s not sure how long he stands there, alone, leaning over the railing and watching the people pass by below him. He watches a couple walk their dog, a teenage girl laugh into her phone, a boy about Gavroche’s age ride his bike down the street.

He hears the door behind him open and he turns his head to find Grantaire poking his head out, looking at him curiously. “Mind if I join you?”

Enjolras shrugs.

Grantaire shuts the door behind him and stands next to him, looking down at the street below. “Doing some people-watching?”

“It’s something to do,” he says, shrugging again.

“Sure.” Grantaire drums his fingers against the bars. The clanging sound is harsh to Enjolras’ ears, but he doesn’t complain. “I do it all the time. Sit in the park, sketch what I see. S’good fun.”

“You’re good,” Enjolras admits. “At your art.”

“Although my work’s subpar?” Grantaire jokes. “Nah, I’m all right.”

“No,” Enjolras starts, and then falls short, thinking of what to say. “You’re good at your work,” he tries again. “You truly are. What I said was said in the heat of the moment. You’re also very good at riling me up, in case you didn’t notice.”

Grantaire laughs. “I didn’t notice at all.” He stretches his arms over his head. “But.” He glances at him. “Thanks.”

Enjolras nods, watching him discreetly out of the corner of his eye. This Grantaire, mostly sober and not being a total jackass, is easy to get along with, easy to start a conversation with, and just, easy. So he says, quietly, “I do write, actually.”

Grantaire turns to face him. His eyes are very, very blue. “Yeah?” His grin is triumphant. “Called it.”

Enjolras rolls his eyes.

“Have you guys performed anything you’ve written?” asks Grantaire. “I’d come watch, you know I would.”

“No.” Enjolras stuffs his hands in his pockets, taking three steps back and leaning against the wall. It’s slightly damp, probably from the rain earlier that afternoon. He stares up at the moon, a thin crescent wisp in the sky. “I’ve never finished anything.”

“You’re shitting me, right?” Grantaire widens his eyes incredulously. “You? Not finish anything? Is the world flat after all? Did Odysseus not make it back to Penelope in the end?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I may be slightly drunk,” Grantaire allows. “But—no, really? Why not?”

“It wasn’t good enough,” Enjolras sighs, frustrated.

Grantaire snorts and Enjolras turns to him with a glare. “Look, I highly doubt that, okay? You’re—in case you didn’t know this, fucking perfect, the sun shines out of your ass, Mary Poppins _practically perfect in every way_ perfect, and whatever you’ve written is probably good enough to rival Shakespeare himself.”

Enjolras, for once, is speechless, and Grantaire lets out a bark of laughter at the look on his face.

“Did you have a poster of Shakespeare on your walls?” he demands, smiling so widely Enjolras is sure his face must hurt. “When all the other boys were saving up their money to buy porn, did you buy all of Shakespeare’s plays? Did you cover your room with pictures of him and scribble his best lines on your bathroom mirror after you had a shower?” His grin turns positively lewd. “Did you ever get yourself off while reading his sonnets—”

“I will hurl you off this balcony,” Enjolras threatens. Grantaire only doubles over in laughter.

“You are ridiculous,” he mutters, opening the door and returning to Courfeyrac’s apartment. Grantaire follows him back, the sound of his barely muffled mirth behind him, and _maybe_ he smiles to himself. But it doesn’t mean anything, just that Grantaire’s a decent guy when he tries to be.

“Good talk?” Combeferre makes room as he settles next to him on the floor.

“You could say that.” He watches Grantaire shove his way between Courfeyrac and Bahorel and nudge Joly’s knee with his foot and wonders when he became such an integral part of their group.

“It’s nice to see you this way,” murmurs Combeferre.

Enjolras looks at him oddly. “What do you mean?”

Courfeyrac chews on his sweet-and-sour shrimp. “You’re just a great deal more relaxed, that’s all.”

“Am I?” Enjolras stops to determine how he’s feeling, and Combeferre’s right. He does feel less tense; his shoulders aren’t as tight and his back isn’t set in its usual rigid stance. “Maybe it’s the alcohol.”

Combeferre shoots him a glance he can’t quite identify. “Sure,” he says. “That’s probably it.”

 

*

 

“Read this,” Enjolras commands, shoving his laptop into Combeferre’s personal space.

With a long-suffering sigh that he doesn’t really mean, Combeferre marks his page in an organic chemistry textbook and does as he’s told. Enjolras values Combeferre’s opinion above anybody else’s (save perhaps his own), so he drums his fingers incessantly on the arm-rest as he awaits the verdict.

“It’s good,” Combeferre says at last, and Enjolras makes a sound of discontent in the back of his throat.

“You always say that,” he accuses, and Combeferre levels a gaze at him through his lenses. Courfeyrac calls it The All-Seeing Gaze of Combeferre the Wise, and although he is prone to hyperbole, Enjolras is inclined to believe him just this once.

“Because it’s true,” Combeferre says, and sounds slightly exasperated. “Listen to me,” he makes eye contact, and that’s how Enjolras knows he means business, honestly, “you are _good_. You are so good that it is, to be quite frank, eerie. Everything that you write is wonderful. Amazing. You write things that no one would expect from someone who’s only twenty-three.”

Enjolras has heard it all before, and the thing is, he knows he’s good. Of course he does. But not good _enough_ , and that makes all the difference.

 “Are you saying that this is at the same level as my previous writing?” he challenges.

Combeferre sighs. “No,” he admits. “It _is_ better.”

The tension in Enjolras’ shoulders escapes with a quiet sigh.

“What were you thinking when you wrote it?” asks Combeferre, scrolling through the document one more time. “Were you, I don’t know, eating something in particular? Drinking? Listening to something?”

Enjolras frowns and goes back to that night in his mind: he’d gone home angry, had caused a scene with Grantaire and ignored him thereafter; he’d thought about what he’d said to him, half guilty, had written for hours and hours, and it had been so, so easy.

It feels oddly private somehow, so he doesn’t share. “No,” he says, “there wasn’t anything.”

“Did you write it the way you usually do? Editing every other word before moving on to the next sentence?”

Enjolras remembers the rush of inspiration he’d felt as he’d churned out nearly ten thousand words before doing any kind of editing. “No,” he admits. “I didn’t.”

Combeferre returns his laptop and picks up his book again. “I think you need to find that place again. Whatever it was. That should be a good start.”

Enjolras settles back on the couch, chewing at his lip and reading through his words again. He thinks of an old guitar and a gentle voice in a dusty theatre. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “I think so, too.”

 

*

 

Enjolras has always liked science, has always enjoyed labs and experiments, so he decides to do one of his own. Over lunch on a Tuesday afternoon, he finds a secluded spot in the corner of the library, plugs his earphones into his laptop, pulls up YouTube, and types in “Taylor Swift.”

He finds the song Grantaire’d sung for them without much difficulty and clicks on the link. As soon as the video starts playing, he wrinkles his nose in distaste. It’s awfully juvenile, he thinks. And why are there people dressed up in animal costumes?

He can’t help but think of Grantaire’s version, clumsily executed on the keyboard.

He stumbles onto a playlist comprised entirely of her songs, and lets it go on auto-play in the background as he works, or attempts to do so. And he does write _something_ , at least. Slightly over a thousand words of something blatantly mediocre, that is, and he deletes it all without hesitation.

“Damn it,” he hisses under his breath. He tries again.

As another song comes to a close (“Love Story,” the YouTube tab kindly informs him), he decides to pursue the scene from a different angle. He’s still not quite satisfied after another half-hour, but he recognizes a losing battle when he sees one, so he packs his things and tries to figure out where he can grab a quick lunch before his class starts.

It’s hot outside, the type of hot that seeps into his bones and sits heavy against his skin. He ducks into the nearest café, instantly grateful for the shade. He happens to glance up, and—

Grantaire sits at one of the tables tucked away near the back wall, hunched over and working on something with a fierce, single-minded intensity. Enjolras slides into the seat opposite him after placing his order, watching him work.

“Hey,” he says at length, feeling awkward.

Grantaire looks up, eyes glazed. Upon seeing him, they instantly sharpen into focus, and he sets his book down on his lap. “Hey,” he returns, pleasantly surprised. “Lunch?”

“Yeah,” he replies, fiddling with the straps of his bag. “Are you working on something?”

“Not much,” is his reply, and he easily turns the subject back to Enjolras. “How’s your writing going?”

Enjolras groans. “Don’t even start,” he mutters. The waitress brings his food then, so he takes a vicious bite of his sandwich for dramatic effect (he _is_ a performer, after all) as he continues. “It’s—to be honest, it’s not terrible. I’ve written worse things. But the other night, I wrote my best work,” and Grantaire, for some reason, looks fascinated and genuinely interested, so he goes on, “and what I’ve written since then just isn’t as good. Combeferre says I need to get back to that place, mentally, but I’m finding it difficult.”

“Mm.” Grantaire rests his chin in his hands. “You need a muse.”

“A muse?” Enjolras chews on his sandwich thoughtfully. “Do you have one, for your art?”

“Of course I do.” Grantaire takes a sip of his nearly empty Coke.

“Yeah? Who?”

“You, of course,” and Enjolras tosses a wadded up napkin at him.

“You’re hilarious,” he says, and then grows serious again. “Maybe I need music. I tried it earlier, and it kind of worked.”

“What sort of music do you usually listen to?” Grantaire asks. “Classical stuff, I’d bet.”

Enjolras shrugs because he’s right, and because he’ll never admit to having looked up Taylor Swift’s songs on YouTube. “I suppose. And whatever Combeferre plays around the apartment. Courfeyrac has a habit of playing his music at an obscenely loud volume, so I end up working to that, too.”

“A little bit of everything, then,” notes Grantaire. “Got it. I’ll help you out, no worries.”

“Help me out how?” Enjolras glances at him warily.

“You’ll see,” he practically sings, and finishes off the last of his drink. “Come on. I’ll walk you to class.”

(And if Enjolras ends up writing another three hundred words ( _good_ words) in seminar that afternoon, well, who’s counting?)

 

*

 

Enjolras’ phone buzzes with a text from an unknown number a couple of days later.

 **Unknown (2:15 PM):** _Meet me at the park asap_

He frowns.

 **You (2:17 PM):** _Who the hell are you?_

 **Unknown (2:18 PM):** _kinda insulted that you don’t know, man_

 **Unknown (2:18 PM):** _it’s only your favorite person in the whole world_

 **Unknown (2:20 PM):** _told you i’d help you out, remember? meant it, too. hurry up, i got a great spot and there’s a 6 yr old giving me the stink eye_

 **You (2:21 PM):** _I have class._

 **Unknown (2:22 PM):** _you are a liar courf told me your schedule and you’re free until rehearsal  
_

Enjolras mentally makes a note to punch Courfeyrac in the trachea the next time he sees him as he types out a reply.

 **You (2:24 PM):** _Fine, I’ll be there soon._

He crams his battered copy of _Hamlet_ into his bag and makes his way out towards the Luxembourg Gardens. It’s nice out today, although the sun’s awfully bright, and he has to cup a hand across his brow to shield his eyes.

It’s not a long walk to the park, and he spots Grantaire soon enough, wearing a ridiculous knitted cap with a notebook on his knee and a pencil in his hand. He has an expression of intense focus on his face, and Enjolras almost hates to disturb him.

“Well, I’m here,” he announces dryly, standing directly in front of him and blocking his light.

Grantaire closes his book and sets it off to the side with a grin. It’s then that Enjolras notices the guitar.

“What,” he says.

“Sit down, start writing.” Grantaire picks up his guitar and does a bit of tuning. “I’ll play you a couple of songs, you try and write.” Enjolras must still look skeptical, because he goes on. “If it doesn’t work, then, okay, we’ll move on and never speak of this again. But you seem really frustrated, and I’m not half-bad at guitar and I’m not totally tone-deaf, so. You know. Give it a try?”

“And it has to be in the park?” Enjolras raises his eyebrows.

“It’s nice out,” he says offhandedly, and it really is, so Enjolras sits down, takes out his laptop, adjusts the monitor so there’s not too bad of a glare, and tries to write.

Grantaire starts to sing, strumming his guitar with a confidence that must come with years of practice. His voice is pleasant (calming, even), and fades into the background as Enjolras writes. The words come to him more easily than they had in the past few nights.

He’s not sure how long they sit there, in the middle of a park in the middle of Paris in the middle of the day. He remains bowed over his laptop nearly the entire time, typing frantically, grasping at words before they fade away. Grantaire continues to sing, pausing only slightly in between songs. Enjolras doesn’t pay much attention to the songs he chooses, but having them in the background seems—enough.

(Beside him, Grantaire croons, _“To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.”_ )

When he next looks up, a crowd of children have gathered around Grantaire, who’s taken to singing songs from _The Lion King._ He looks back down at his work and realizes that he’s just wrapped up the first act of his play.

Grantaire turns to face him, laughing in the middle of a line. Enjolras finds himself smiling back despite himself.

“Now, this is my last song,” Grantaire tells the children, who groan loudly, “and it happens to be my friend’s favorite song, too, so if you know it, sing along.”

He spares Enjolras a mischievous smirk, and starts playing that _fucking song again_.

And of course, the children know it, and belt out the chorus with great cheer. _“We_ ,” they declare proudly, _“are never, ever, ever getting back together!_ ”

And if Enjolras is laughing by the end of the song, well. It’s the kind of irritating song that wears you down over time, so gradually that you barely even notice it. Besides, he thinks, watching Grantaire sling his guitar across his back, it _is_ awfully catchy.

  

*

  

He arrives at the theatre first (as he usually does), and tosses his bag onto one of the seats in the front row. He pulls out his copy of _Hamlet_ and flips right to the soliloquy in Act III though he knows it all by heart, has known it by heart since he was fifteen.

He stretches out the kinks in his neck as he approaches the stage, staring out at the empty seats. It’s not the same—there’s no rush of adrenaline here in the dark, and he’s all alone, amidst half-finished set pieces.

 _“To be, or not to be,_ ” he begins, reading from the book first. The words are familiar on his lips, and he loses himself in the role easily enough. He sets the book down on stage after a few lines, breathes in, and pretends that it’s opening night. He’s never been the sort of person who imagines an empty room when he gives presentations in class or performs in plays; he’s never needed that to get by. What he needs is the audience, a full house, staring at him with wide-eyed anticipation. So he pictures that, instead, pretends that all the seats are filled, that he’s underneath the lights, and it’s time.

A slow, steady applause as he finishes, and he looks up to see Combeferre and Grantaire enter.

“You can never take a rest, can you?” sighs Combeferre.

“Just wanted to see if I could do it,” says Enjolras, bending down to retrieve his book. He meets Grantaire’s eyes. He’s always watching him, with a strange sort of intensity he rarely gives anything else. He arches an eyebrow. “What, then?” he challenges. “Would it be better if we played Backstreet Boys, do you think?”

Grantaire sets his bag on the floor. “Nah, I think we can leave that one as it is.”  His grin widens sharply, something that Enjolras has learned to dread. “I’m sure it’ll be even better once you’ve got the tights on,” he adds, which Enjolras valiantly ignores.

Combeferre draws him aside to report an issue with costumes, and Grantaire works on filling in the final details on Yorick’s skull, which he’d insisted on making himself. Soon enough, the rest of the crew shows up, and Enjolras gets too caught up in getting Claudius’ death scene just right (“I’m beginning to think you enjoy fake-poisoning me,” Courfeyrac says, a little alarmed) for the majority of the afternoon.

When they wrap up for the day, Enjolras grabs his bag and slings it over his shoulder. One of his notebooks has fallen out, so he slips it back in between his books and hurries after Combeferre so they can get their groceries together.

“See you tomorrow, Enjolras!” Jehan calls after him, and Enjolras turns back to give him a brief wave. As he does, though, he catches a glimpse of Grantaire beside him, who raises his hand lazily in goodbye.

Enjolras nods to him and follows Combeferre out.

 

*

  

It’s raining, today, a steady downpour against the rooftops of the city. Enjolras, tapping on his phone, doesn’t watch where he’s going, and ends up splashing into puddles more than once, the hem of his pants quickly growing damp.

The Boulevard Saint-Michel is crowded despite the rain, and he jostles against more than one person as he makes his towards his destination. There is someone else at his bus stop, a mess of dark curls and a navy t-shirt with faded jeans. He knows who it is before he sees his face, and isn’t even remotely surprised. Grantaire seems to be everywhere these days.

“Well, hello,” Grantaire says, warmly. “What are you up to on this fine Saturday afternoon?”

Enjolras shrugs. “Not much. I was going to discuss some things with Combeferre and Jehan regarding the play. And study a little, maybe.”

Grantaire nods. “How’s the writing coming along?”

“Good enough.” He follows the track of a raindrop down Grantaire’s shoulder to his guitar strap. “Better, actually. The music—it helped.”

Grantaire looks genuinely surprised. “Did it really?”

“It did.” Enjolras thinks back to that sunny afternoon, Grantaire’s guitar and voice in the background, schoolchildren flocking to him. “I don’t think I ever thanked you.”

Grantaire waves him off. “Not necessary. Happy to do it. Honest.”

“Still. Thank you,” he says. Grantaire lets out an awkward laugh.

“You’re welcome.” He glances up, squinting at the approaching bus. “Well, that’s me.” He sticks his hands in his pockets, and comes up with his travelcard. As the bus comes to a stop in front of them, brakes squeaking against the road, he asks, without looking at him, “Would you like to come over?”

Enjolras stares at him. “What?”

“I could play for you, if you’d like?” Grantaire meets his eyes briefly as the bus door opens. “I’ve nothing else to do, and if Combeferre and Jehan can spare you for an hour or so…”

The bus driver is shooting them impatient looks, and Grantaire half-extends his arm towards him before pulling back abruptly. “Up to you,” he says casually, turning away and boarding the bus.

Enjolras stares at his back as he swipes his card and, unthinkingly, climbs on and does the same. He follows Grantaire to the back of the bus and sits down next to him, scant inches between them. Grantaire is looking at him incredulously, like he’s not of this world. Enjolras doesn’t know what it means, but it unnerves him, so he looks away first, and spends the rest of the ride staring out the window.

 

*

 

It turns out that Grantaire’s apartment is on the floor above Courfeyrac’s, and he wonders if he’s always been here, just a staircase away, all the times he’s come to see Courfeyrac.

“Come in, come in,” Grantaire ushers him in, closing the door behind him. He tosses his keys on the kitchen counter. Enjolras glances around. It’s a small space, and it’s very—Grantaire. There are books and papers everywhere, and half-opened sets of paintbrushes and charcoal lie scattered on the ground.

“You’re not busy?” Enjolras asks. It suddenly occurs to him that he might be imposing, that Grantaire has better things to do than to cater to his whims and play his guitar while he tries to write something that Grantaire probably doesn’t really care about.

“Does it look like I’m busy?” Grantaire jerks his head towards the mess in his living room. “It’s fine, really. I like playing. I don’t get to do it often enough.”

Enjolras believes him. “Well, okay. Where should I sit?” he asks, trying and failing to find an empty spot in the room.

Grantaire follows his line of vision. “Oh, anywhere. Shove my books onto the floor for all I care.”

Enjolras stares at him, aghast. “You can’t possibly be serious.”

“As a heart attack,” says Grantaire cheerfully.

Enjolras pulls a face and carefully moves some of the books from the couch onto the floor. He makes himself as comfortable as he can—the couch is old, and creaks dangerously when he settles his full weight upon it—and opens up his laptop.

He’s distracted, at first. It’s the first time he’s been in Grantaire’s apartment, and it’s intriguing to see how much of him exists in this space. The stack of books, for example, teetering precariously on the coffee table in front of him, has everything from Nietzsche to Harry Potter to an old copy of _Gray’s Anatomy_. From here, he can see the stack of dishes piled high in the sink, bread crumbs and croissant flakes strewn about the kitchen counter, empty beer bottles on the floor. There are half-a-dozen pairs of shoes tucked next to the door, a dark green sweater slung carelessly across the other end of the couch, a nearly empty box of cigarettes and a faded family photograph next to the telephone.

Grantaire stops by his bedroom (Enjolras sees an unmade bed, more books, and clothes thrown across the floor) and when he returns, decides to perch on the kitchen counter some few feet across from Enjolras. “Don’t mind me,” he says, setting his guitar on his lap, “I’m trying to pick my way through a couple of new songs. Might sound a bit sloppy.”

“I don’t mind,” replies Enjolras, and means it.

It takes a little longer than it did that day at the park, and he spends a lot of time editing what he’d written a few nights ago, but he eventually gets into a steady rhythm. Grantaire doesn’t play the whole time, today, takes quick breaks to go to the bathroom and check things on his laptop, but Enjolras doesn’t pay that any mind. He’s in that _place_ again, and he never would have expected it to be in a dusty, cramped apartment, surrounded by dog-eared books and art supplies, but he’ll take what he can get.

Grantaire starts playing another song just as he comes to the conclusion of a scene and Enjolras taps his fingers impatiently on his keyboard, narrowing his eyes at the screen, because that last line isn’t _quite_ right, doesn’t have quite the right impact, and—

Oh, _there_ it is, he thinks, lips stretching into a grin, erasing what he’d written and replacing it with something so much better.

Grantaire sings, _“Am I bright enough to shine in your spaces?”_ and Enjolras absentmindedly thinks that it’s a rather lovely line as he scrolls back up and rereads what he’s just written. It’s good work, and satisfaction settles into his bones.

He’s jolted out of the world he’s created and back into reality at the sound of Courfeyrac banging down Grantaire’s front door. “Quit with the sad songs, R, I know you’ve been pining away hopelessly but life’s not so bad!” he hollers. In response, Grantaire flings his guitar away, leaps off the couch, and hastily pulls open his front door.

“Oh? Enjolras—” Courfeyrac glances back and forth between the two of them and gleefully asks, “Oh my _god,_ am I interrupting? You should’ve said—” and Grantaire steps on his feet and takes hold of the plastic bags he’s brought along with him.

“Beer and ice cream, food of the gods,” Grantaire proclaims, dumping the contents out on his table.

“Better than ambrosia!” declares Courfeyrac. “You want some, Enjolras?”

Enjolras figures he deserves a break, so he sets down his laptop and ventures to the kitchen, where Grantaire is scooping out rocky road ice cream into shot glasses.

“Really?” he says, arching his eyebrows at the sight.

“It works, doesn’t it?” says Grantaire unapologetically as he hands him a glass. Enjolras takes it and, what the hell, licks into the ice cream, tosses his head back, and downs it in one go. He ends up with a brain freeze for his efforts, and squeezes his eyes shut briefly.

When he next opens them, Courfeyrac is making kissy-faces at Grantaire, who is laughing while trying to maim him with an ice cream scoop. He watches them both, bemused.

“Did you ever find your notebook?” Courfeyrac asks once Grantaire has ceased trying to attack him.

“You lost a notebook?” He can’t imagine losing something that contains all of his thoughts and ideas. “Were there any of your drawings in there?”

“Mm, some,” answers Grantaire carelessly, “not a whole lot, and they weren’t very good anyway.”

“You should still look for it,” insists Enjolras. “What does it look like?”

“Er, green?” tries Grantaire. “It’s really not a big deal.”

“Hey, give me your guitar,” Courfeyrac says out of the blue, and doesn’t wait for Grantaire’s response before reaching for it and strumming a few chords experimentally. “I will grace you both with a song.”

“Our angel of music,” says Grantaire dryly, and Courfeyrac winks at him.

“It’s your favorite song, or at least one of them,” he reassures him, and begins to play. _“Here comes the sun,”_ he starts, but ends up bursting into laughter, the song dying off with a dissonant twang. Grantaire looks like he’s about to strangle him, but ends up doubled over as well, gasping for breath. Enjolras can’t help but feel as though he’s missed a very obvious joke. 

 

*

 

And then Jehan breaks a leg.

“I know that we always _say_ to ‘break a leg’ in theatre, but nobody actually wants you to,” Combeferre tells him, and Jehan promptly flips him off, looking as menacing as a person can get with his left leg in traction.

“But really,” says Enjolras, giving him an extremely severe look, “parkour? Of all things?”

“Bahorel dared me,” protests Jehan.

“Of course he did,” sighs Enjolras.

“What I want to know,” Courfeyrac cuts in, “is how you ended up here and Bossuet escaped unscathed.” Bossuet throws one of the spare blankets at him.

“But I’m glad you’re all right,” says Cosette, patting Jehan’s arm.

“We’ll need someone to take your role, though,” muses Enjolras, and is greeted by several pairs of exasperated eyes. “Of course, I, too, am relieved that you are recovering.”

Jehan snorts. “Appreciated.”

“R could do it,” Éponine says suddenly, and Enjolras slowly turns to her with a doubtful expression. “What? He could.”

Grantaire, who’s been playing Angry Birds on his phone since managing to squeeze himself into a small space at the end of the cramped couch, startles. “What can I do, now?”

“Take my role as Osric,” says Jehan, distractedly, and retrieves a pencil from beneath his pillow. He attempts to scratch beneath the cast at an awkward angle, despite Joly’s protests. “I’ll still be around, of course. I’ll probably do more directing, continue helping with costumes, that sort of thing.”

“Sounds interesting enough,” Grantaire concedes, but Enjolras narrows his eyes at him.

“An audition first,” he warns, “a proper one, this time.”

“Did my musical abilities not dazzle you properly the first time?” Grantaire arches an eyebrow.

“A proper one,” Enjolras repeats, louder.

“By which he means it has to be in iambic pentameter,” Éponine whispers.

“Ah,” says Grantaire, catching Enjolras’ eye. “Should’ve gone with the Queen Mab thing then, huh.”

“If you can do it properly,” Enjolras challenges him.

Grantaire only smiles. “Maybe I’ll surprise you.”

“I hope you do,” says Enjolras.

 

*

 

Grantaire shows up at the theatre the next day as usual, wearing a wrinkled t-shirt and ragged black jeans. They haven’t started yet, so he takes the opportunity to hop on stage and announce, “I am here to audition.” He grins. “Properly, even.”

Feuilly, standing beside him, snorts at that, and Grantaire leans against him heavily until he is unceremoniously shoved away.

“Go on, then.” Enjolras crosses his arms over his chest. “What are you performing?”

“Oh, you know.” Grantaire shrugs, waving a hand carelessly. “That whole… balcony deal.”

“That whole balcony deal,” Enjolras repeats flatly. “Please don’t make me hurt you.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” is the flippant reply, and then he’s leaning close, and murmuring into his ear: “Don’t worry. It’ll be good.”

Enjolras steps away and settles into one of the front-row seats. He watches with a detached sort of interest as Éponine drags Claudius’ throne to stage right and sits, crossing her legs primly. Grantaire winks at her, and she rolls her eyes.

“Dazzle me, Romeo,” she says, and Grantaire begins.

 _“But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?”_ His voice is unbearably tender, and Enjolras, eyes narrowed in concentration, scrutinizes his performance for every crack and fault. _“It is the east,_ ” he murmurs in an aside, eyes flickering towards the audience, _“and Juliet is the sun.”_

It is, all in all, not bad. Grantaire plays a man in love quite well, far better than Enjolras could have ever imagined. But more than that is, well, he’s quite _good._ He appears comfortable on stage, though maybe that comes from his experience with the guitar. He says the words clearly and naturally, as though he’s known them for years, and not from an overnight cram session. Éponine, in her metaphorical balcony, acts as though she can’t hear, but every so often he catches her looking at him with affection in her eyes, and a sort of gentle pity.

Odd.

There’s a standing ovation once he finishes, led by, of course, Courfeyrac, and Grantaire accepts it all with a bow. He straightens, and finds Enjolras first.

“Well?”

“You’re in,” says Enjolras, long-sufferingly.

“As we all knew he would be,” Éponine cuts in, and raises her eyebrows at him. “You just enjoy making him jump through unnecessary hoops.”

“I do not,” protests Enjolras, at the same time that Grantaire says, “I like jumping.”

Éponine snorts loudly at that. “You would, wouldn’t you?” She steps on her tiptoes and presses a quick kiss to his cheek. “Be careful,” Enjolras thinks he hears her whisper into Grantaire’s ear, who returns it with a small, self-deprecating sort of smile.

He sets the moment aside to think about later, and inevitably winds up asking Combeferre about it that evening as they’re watching television.

“Have you ever felt,” he begins, “as though you were the only one left out of a long and very elaborate joke?”

Combeferre glances at him. “Can’t say that I have.”

“Hm.” Enjolras chews on his lip, a habit nearly as old as he is.

Combeferre stands up and ruffles his hair before venturing into the kitchen. Enjolras scowls at him, but doesn’t do much else. Combeferre’s probably the only person in the world who could get away with that move unscathed, save for his mother.

He returns to the couch with two mugs of coffee. “Don’t worry,” he says, lightly, “sooner or later, you’ll get in on the joke.”

“So there _is_ a joke?” demands Enjolras, ignoring the coffee.

Combeferre pauses. “If you want there to be,” he says after a moment.

“You are utterly unhelpful,” Enjolras tells him.

“So I’ve been told.” Combeferre elbows him. “Shut up and drink your coffee.”

 

*

 

They celebrate Jehan’s discharge from the hospital with plenty of wine, as they do. His apartment is wide and spacious, and the rest of them waste no time in invading his territory, opening bottles of alcohol and passing around piping hot slices of pizza.

Enjolras is feeling a bit more relaxed, tonight, because everything seems to be falling into place—there’s a week and a half left until opening night, everybody is performing at an acceptable level, the costumes are nearly ready, and things are fine, even better than fine.

So he drinks a little more than he usually does, slouching against Jehan’s impossibly soft couch pillows. They take turns signing his cast, trying to see who can scribble the most vulgar message against the purple plaster (Courfeyrac is winning at the moment, but Bossuet looks like he’s thinking very, _very_ hard). Grantaire’s busy decorating most of the cast rather than signing it, armed with Jehan’s not insignificant collection of colored markers, and Enjolras has to cram in his name next to a particularly elaborate red flower. He raises his eyebrows at it.

“Is that a—”

“A scarlet pimpernel, yes,” says Grantaire, winking, and Enjolras rolls his eyes at him.

An hour or so later, Jehan makes them put on _West Side Story_ , and soon enough they’re all on the couch or on the floor, watching the Jets and the Sharks on the screen.

“Don’t even start,” Jehan warns him.

“What?” Enjolras puts his hands up in a gesture of peace. “I like this. Mostly.”

(He does, actually. He likes the music, likes how it’s been modernized, and may or may not have had “Something’s Coming” stuck in his head for a solid month after he’d first seen it, but he’s sworn Combeferre to secrecy, so no one will ever know.)

There’s some sort of unspoken agreement to drink more as the movie progresses, and eventually Marius is the first to let out a long, poorly muffled sniffle, leading to an exchange of money between Grantaire and Bahorel. Enjolras lifts his glass to his lips, trying not to look interested.

“I thought Courf would be the first to crack,” Grantaire murmurs to him with a shrug.

“With Greek tragedies, typically, yes.” Enjolras shifts on the couch. “Not so much with the modern stories, though. I hope you didn’t lose too much.”

“Could’ve been worse.” Grantaire takes a swig from his bottle and reaches for another slice of pizza.

They don’t spend the whole evening together—which, _of course not_ , why would they—but he finds himself looking for Grantaire without realizing. Looks for him while he’s sitting in the kitchen with Combeferre, half-watching the news; looks for him while chatting with Cosette on the floor, sitting on the faded carpet; looks until he finds him standing against the wall, laughing at something Feuilly’s saying, and wanting to know what he could’ve said to make him laugh.

Looking back, that really should’ve been his first clue.

 

*

 

It is half-past two in the morning, and Enjolras is lying awake in bed doing a dozen things at once. He’s editing his play, he’s rereading bits of _Hamlet_ , he’s skimming various critiques of the play, he’s got _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead_ open on his laptop, and there is a large, _large_ pot of coffee on his bedside table.

He shoves at his glasses as they slip down his nose (they’re dark and thick-rimmed, and sit heavy on his nose) and blinks furiously at the text swimming before his eyes. He continues in this vein for five minutes before realizing that it’s futile, and flings his glasses onto the nearest pillow, throwing the blankets off and pacing along the floor.

His eyes land on his backpack, sitting on the floor, tucked against the bed. He has a notebook he likes to write in, sometimes, if he doesn’t have his laptop with him—quick bursts of dialogue for his play, hastily written commentaries and critiques on their performances.  He unzips it and grabs, curiously, not one, but two green spirals from his bag.

The first one he opens is his, his familiar handwriting staring at him from the lined pages. He sets that aside and reaches for the second one. The first page contains a multitude of sketches in pencil, smudged against the cover. He turns the page, suddenly wide-awake and undeniably interested. There are more sketches, still-life drawings and rough renderings of Paris—the parks, the buses, Disneyland, students at the cafés on the Boulevard Saint-Michel.

It’s Grantaire’s missing notebook, he realizes, and the knowledge somehow stirs him to keep turning the pages. Towards the middle, he finds drawings of the theatre, of the rest of them performing on stage, of Feuilly hammering away at a set piece. And there’s a few of him, too, huddled over his laptop, brow furrowed in concentration as he types. He allows himself to linger on those for a little longer than is strictly necessary before turning the page.

The notebook contains more than drawings, though. He finds scribbles of art history, tidbits on Monet and da Vinci’s life squeezed in the margins. There are (intelligent if cynical) ramblings on Rousseau and Robespierre, Voltaire and Descartes, Socrates and Aristotle. And there are lines of—Enjolras furrows his brow— _poetry_ , the anguished words of Baudelaire. He skims through the pages, greedy, until he comes to the last page that contains writing. The lines are lopsided, as though Grantaire had tried to write properly in between the lines, but had failed.

_“They must make a queer pair of lovers. I know just what it is like. Ecstasies in which they forget to kiss. Pure on earth, but joined in heaven. They are souls possessed of senses. They lie among the stars.”_

Enjolras stares, stares for a long time. He’s well-read, to say the least, and can name the source of most literary quotes before he gets to the end of a sentence. But this—he racks his brain, and can’t figure it out.

Google doesn’t turn up any search results, either.

Well, he thinks, quite calmly, it appears as though it’s an original quote.

He gets back into bed and tries to return to his work, but his eyes keep flickering back to that notebook.

He doesn’t get anything else done that night.

 

*

 

Grantaire shows up ten minutes late to rehearsal the following day, and Enjolras pats Jehan on the shoulder as he passes by, leaving the production under his direction for the moment. He slips his hand inside his bag, pulls out what he needs, and meets Grantaire at the door.

“I found this,” he says, holding out the notebook. Grantaire’s expression shifts into something indescribable before morphing back into his easy, deceptive smile.

“Knew it would turn up sooner or later.” He reaches for it and crams it unceremoniously into his fraying messenger bag. “Thanks.”

“That’s it?”

Grantaire tilts his head at him. “What’s it?”

Enjolras tries to swallow down the anger bubbling up in his throat. These feelings are irrational, and he is anything but irrational. “I flipped through it. Just to see.”

“Okay,” says Grantaire slowly. “You don’t—you don’t need to apologize, if that’s what you’re thinking. They’re just, I don’t know, doodles. They’re not important. They’re stupid. I wouldn’t have cared if I’d never seen them again.”

“But they’re not stupid. They’re important, of course they are. They’re _yours._ ” He can’t comprehend how those drawings and those few, short lines _aren’t_ important. If he’d lost his writings, his half-finished plays, he’d tear up all of Paris without a second thought.

Grantaire lets out a derisive snort. “Which is exactly why they don’t matter.”

“What the _fuck_ , Grantaire,” Enjolras bursts out, and has the vicious pleasure of watching Grantaire’s eyes widen in surprise. “They’re everything about you, the things you enjoy, the things you like.” He falls silent. The book, crumpled and stained with coffee and wine, had given him sparse glimpses into Grantaire’s mind, and it had shown him that there was so much more to him than he’d originally thought.

If he’s being completely honest with himself, he kind of hates himself for missing it.

“You have so much potential,” he finally says, quiet.

“It’s my life,” says Grantaire, equally soft.

“But are you satisfied with yourself?” Enjolras presses on, struggling to understand. He’s ambitious, always pushing his limits, constantly striving to break barriers and be better. He can’t imagine simply settling for second-best. He can’t comprehend how anybody could. “You study art, you say, but I’ve never seen you in the studios, never seen you work on any of your pieces aside from a few sketches. You play guitar, you sing abominably well, to be frank, but you don’t do anything with it. And now—” he gestures to the notebook, “—I’ve read your scathing critiques on classical philosophers, seen you capture the life of Paris in pencil sketches, read what I assume is a bit of your original work—”

Grantaire’s face twists into something ugly. “Enough,” he says, but Enjolras is undeterred.

“I don’t understand why you don’t do anything!” His voice rises with frustration. “You’re clearly intelligent, but you’re not using any of it—”

“Enough,” Grantaire repeats, louder. “I told you, it’s my life, and yes, as a matter of fact, I _am_ content living this way, and I’ll continue to fuck it up on my own, thanks.”

The fact that Grantaire simply doesn’t care infuriates Enjolras even further. His hands clench into fists; his fingernails curl harshly into the creases of his palms. He takes his words and deliberately twists them into something vicious. “Is this your plan, then? You’re just going to waste away the rest of your life and find your calling at the bottom of a bottle, pathetic and—”

“ _Enjolras._ ” Combeferre’s voice is a steel whip behind him, and Enjolras stops, breathing heavily.

Grantaire puts his hands together in a slow, mocking clap. “Thank you for that enlightening piece of wisdom,” he says, still smiling. Enjolras wants to punch it from his face, a stark visceral reaction that only Grantaire seems to be capable of wrenching from him. “In light of that, I think I will take my leave. Nobody wants a giant fuck-up around, after all, and I’m sure our dear leader would prefer I not screw his beloved play over.”

He turns and leaves without another word. Éponine, Joly, and Bossuet rush after him, with Éponine intentionally knocking into Enjolras’ shoulder with a dirty glare. Enjolras is still heaving with anger, though now it’s mixed with a little bit of uncertainty and regret.

“I’d like you to know that if I could walk, I would be after him too,” Jehan informs him pleasantly, and Enjolras pinches at the bridge of his nose and exhales sharply.

“Well? What are the rest of you doing?” he barks, and watches as the remainder of them scurry about on stage. Combeferre gives him a thoroughly disappointed look, and Courfeyrac lets out pointed sighs for the rest of the rehearsal.

Enjolras wishes he’d never found the notebook in the first place.

 

*

 

“I’m not wrong,” he says, as soon as rehearsal ends and everybody else has cleared out of the theatre. Combeferre and Courfeyrac are the only ones that are left. He clears his throat. “I’m not.”

Combeferre takes a seat in the front row as Courfeyrac ventures backstage, but says nothing. Enjolras gazes at him pensively.

“Nothing?” he asks, quietly.

“Do you really need me to tell you that what you did was wrong?” Combeferre asks, and Enjolras lets out a tired sigh as he collapses into the seat beside him.

“No,” he mutters, “but I think I’d feel better if you yelled at me.”

Combeferre elbows him, and Enjolras turns to see him looking amused. “I’m not your mother.”

Enjolras elbows him back. Courfeyrac returns from the back, bearing cans of cheap beer. He’s already got one open, and takes a heavy swig from it as he makes himself comfortable on Enjolras’ other side.

“So,” he begins, as Enjolras opens a can and puts it to his mouth, “did you know he was trouble when he walked in?”

Enjolras spits out his beer.

“Is he the reason for the teardrops on your guitar?” Courfeyrac asks solemnly, like he’s not spouting off Taylor Swift lyrics in casual conversation. “Are you two never, ever, ever getting back together—oh my _god not the beard not the beard!”_

Enjolras gives his fake beard one last, brutal tug before falling heavily back into his seat. “I stand by what I said,” he says, staring at the stage. “He _is_ better than he thinks he is, and he could do a lot more.”

“But?” prompts Combeferre.

“But I suppose that wasn’t the best way to present the idea,” he mutters, and Courfeyrac snorts.

“You think?” he snaps, and then flinches away, covering his jaw. Enjolras pulls a face.

“You’ve always had a tendency to be rather insensitive,” says Combeferre with a sigh, “I just haven’t seen you be quite that cruel in some time.”

Courfeyrac suddenly laughs. “Do you remember when Marius first met Cosette? Two, two-and-a-half years ago?”

Combeferre groans. “I wish I didn’t.”

“I wasn’t that bad,” Enjolras says, defensively, “I had a legitimate excuse—”

“You told Marius, and I quote, ‘Who cares about your lonely soul?’”

“We were putting on _The Glass Menagerie_ and someone had stolen the goddamn glass menagerie two days before opening night, so _excuse me if I was a little stressed_ —”

“You made him _cry_!”

“He was being ridiculous!” insists Enjolras, even though Courfeyrac and Combeferre are giving him identical looks of fond exasperation.

Then Courfeyrac says, gently, “You know we’d follow you anywhere, right?”

“What?” Enjolras blinks at them both.

“We would,” agrees Combeferre. “And we speak for the rest of the group when we say that. If you woke up tomorrow morning and told us to pack our bags because we were going to go across the continent, performing at whatever locale would have us—”

“Like wandering nomads,” adds Courfeyrac helpfully.

“We’d follow you in a heartbeat,” finishes Combeferre.

Enjolras can’t help but smile, oddly touched. “I do know that. And I appreciate it, more than you know—”

“But you’re still kind of a dick,” Courfeyrac says, and Combeferre nods beside him.

“Thank you,” says Enjolras dryly, “really, for all of your help.” They spend a moment in comfortable silence before he says, a little hesitantly, “I suppose we won’t see Grantaire around here anymore.”

Courfeyrac lets out a long, pained groan. “Seriously?” He leans into Enjolras’ personal space. Enjolras hadn’t known he had freckles on his nose. “Seriously?” he repeats.

“What?” Enjolras asks.

Combeferre nudges Courfeyrac aside, who mumbles several unpleasant things under his breath.

“You are,” Combeferre begins, “my oldest, dearest friend.” Enjolras wonders what he’s getting at because he _knows_ this; they’ve been inseparable since primary school, when he’d found Montparnasse bullying Combeferre about his glasses and Enjolras had decided to punch him in his pretty little face. “But you are also terribly, frightfully oblivious.”

Enjolras stares at him uncomprehendingly.

“You don’t listen,” Combeferre tries to explain.

“I do,” Enjolras tries, but Courfeyrac interrupts.

“Have you even heard any of the things he’s been singing to you?” he demands. At Enjolras’ blank look, he closes his eyes and takes a slow, calming breath. “He sang his fucking heart out that day in his apartment, didn’t he? And in the park, too—”

“How do you know about the park?” Enjolras asks suspiciously.

“You were in the _park_. I was walking by, what else do you think, Sherlock—”

“All we’re trying to say,” Combeferre says, placating, “is that—maybe you should try to listen. To him, and to what he’s got to say. Okay?”

“And that all the money in the world couldn’t keep R away,” adds Courfeyrac with a grin.

And there’s that feeling again, where everybody else is playing a prank on him and he can’t figure out what it is. He’s getting awfully tired of it. “Okay,” he says, at last, staring up at the rafters. “Okay.”

 

*

 

Grantaire doesn’t show up to the next rehearsal and Enjolras begins to think that Courfeyrac was wrong, that Grantaire had given up on them and their play. He doesn’t like it. Not that Grantaire had ever been an essential, vital part of their production, but not seeing his mess of curls or his ripped jeans or his paint-spattered bags leaves a hollow sort of ache in his throat.

Then, Monday, and Enjolras enters the theatre to the sounds of play-fighting. It’s only four-thirty, so while it would be too early to get drunk for _most_ people—well, they’ve never really been most people. He approaches the room apprehensively, only to find Grantaire and Bahorel on stage, dancing back and forth with swords nicked from their props collection.

He lingers in the back, somehow unwilling to go any further. Grantaire is graceful on stage, easily parrying Bahorel’s thrusts, and Enjolras knows first-hand that Bahorel rarely ever holds back in a fight scene. He’s got the cuts and bruises to prove it. They knock each other’s swords away and Grantaire dives for Bahorel’s, pausing as he stands over his fallen body.

“And then Enjolras stabs you with the poisoned sword, yeah?” Grantaire is only slightly out of breath as he raises his sword and brings it down heavily against the floor, missing Bahorel’s side by inches.

“And now I’m dead,” Bahorel, playing Laertes, says agreeably. “Thanks for running through the choreography with me, by the way.” He sits up, brushing sweaty bangs away from his forehead. He catches sight of Enjolras in the back and raises a hand. “Oh, hey, Enjolras.”

Grantaire stiffens almost imperceptibly as he picks up both swords. Enjolras’ eyes follow the curve of his back, the slope of his shoulders as he straightens and turns to face him. “Hey.”

“I didn’t know you could fence,” he says, slowly approaching the stage.

“Yeah, well.” Grantaire shrugs, handing the swords to Bahorel as he heads backstage. “You don’t know a lot of things about me.”

The words are a simple statement of fact, no cruelty intended. But they bother Enjolras more than he’d like, and he frowns.

“No,” he says, staring at him. “I suppose I don’t.”

 

*

 

The weight of his phone is heavy in his hands as he scrolls through his contacts. Grantaire’s name and number glare accusingly at him from his screen, his thumb tracing the curve of his name and the digits that follow.

Oh, what the hell.

 **You (6:08 PM):** _I require your assistance._

 **Grantaire (6:13 PM):** _what kind of assistance?_

Enjolras chews at his lip, frowning at his phone.

 **You (6:17 PM):** _Your music. If you don’t mind._

 **Grantaire (6:20 PM):** _i don’t mind, you know that. when’s a good time for you?_

 **You (6:23 PM):** _Tomorrow would work for me. Maybe a little after lunch._

 **Grantaire (6:26 PM):** _ok then. is the park ok? i like being outside_

 **You (6:27 PM):** _Yes. I’ll see you then._

*

 

Enjolras arrives first, trying not to let his allergies get the better of him. The grass is freshly cut, and the sharp smell stings at his nose. It’s a little warm for June, but nothing too uncomfortable, and he pulls out his laptop and opens up his half-finished play.

Grantaire shows up ten minutes later, guitar in hand. He offers a small, uncertain smile, which Enjolras seizes and stows away. He nods at him in return, and turns back to his work, letting the words wash over him.

And then Grantaire starts to play.

 _“Did I drive you away?”_ he wonders, hands steady on his guitar. Enjolras flinches, but doesn’t let on that he’s heard. He forces his eyes to stay on the screen, remembering what Courfeyrac had said about Grantaire singing his heart out, what Combeferre had said about him not listening. He’s beginning to think they were right.

“ _But I won’t let you down,”_ Grantaire sings in a soft, gentle murmur, “ _oh yeah, yes, I will_.”

It’s a little difficult to work on his play after that, distracted as he is by Grantaire’s singing. He wonders what else Grantaire had sung for him when he hadn’t paid attention. Figures, that the one song he remembers would be about never getting back together. He is suddenly, irrationally angry at himself for it, and closes out of his document with a scowl.

Beside him, Grantaire pauses and digs through his backpack for a bottle of water. He lets out a muffled curse as he pulls out a small, crumpled box.

“Er, these are for you,” he says, apologetically, and Enjolras accepts it, startled.

He opens it and peers inside. “Macarons,” he says, confused.

Grantaire shrugs. “I sort of, uh, always bring food to say sorry? Usually some form of cheap alcohol, but, you know, considering…” He trails off as Enjolras takes a bite of a chocolate-flavored one.

“These are good,” Enjolras says, turning surprised eyes to him.

“Of course they are,” says Grantaire, a little smug. “I know the best places for everything.”

Enjolras pops the rest of the macaron into his mouth, chewing slowly. He swallows and admits, “You surprise me. Constantly.”

Grantaire tosses his water into his backpack, eyeing him cautiously. “Is that a good thing?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Enjolras answers, honestly.

“Fair enough,” says Grantaire, picking up his guitar again, but Enjolras turns to face him fully, determined, at last, to figure this out.

“I don’t know a lot about you,” he begins, slowly, and Grantaire sets his guitar down on his lap.

“No?” he echoes, puzzled.

“You said that to me the other day,” Enjolras goes on, unable—or unwilling—to look away. Grantaire, to his credit, meets his gaze squarely, though he lets out a slightly embarrassed chuckle.

“I say a lot of things,” he says offhandedly. “You’d be better off learning not to pay attention.”

“Don’t do that.” Enjolras tries not to snap. “Don’t make yourself less important than you really are.”

Grantaire stares at him for a long time. Enjolras lets him. “I don’t know what you want from me,” he says, a little helplessly.

“Just,” Enjolras starts, and stops. “When did you learn how to play the guitar?”

Grantaire jerks in surprise. “Uh, I was—eight, I think? Piano, too, about the same time.”

Enjolras nods. “All right. You may ask me a question.”

Grantaire lets out a short, startled laugh. “Are we—are we playing a game?”

Enjolras clears his throat. “It’s been brought to my attention that I don’t know a lot about you, and that sometimes I don’t listen. I’d like to fix that. That’s all. If you don’t want to, that’s fine, but—”

“No, yes, yes, it’s fine, god,” Grantaire says, smiling at him again. “Do you, I don’t know, have some sort of secret special talent that doesn’t involve the uncanny ability to memorize soliloquies in Elizabethan English?”

Enjolras pauses to think. “I can clap with one hand,” he offers, and doesn’t expect Grantaire to drop his guitar with a heavy thud.

“Shut up,” Grantaire breathes, eyes crinkling as he laughs. “You _cannot_.” So Enjolras proceeds to show him that he, in fact, can.

“What else can you do with one hand?” Grantaire leers at him afterwards, and Enjolras shoves him away with a groan.

“What did you want to be when you grew up?” asks Enjolras, after a bit. They’ve somehow moved closer together, shoulders almost touching. “I knew I wanted to write from an early age.”

“A Viking,” replies Grantaire, cheeky. “And then, afterwards, an astronaut, for a little while. I was always just really fascinated with the stars as a boy, I guess. The sun, too, I was one of those nutters that thought we’d all burn up someday, once we got too close.”

“Why didn’t you pursue it, then?” asks Enjolras curiously.

“Because I genuinely fucking hate science,” Grantaire deadpans, and Enjolras snorts. “I also may have thought that England had a different moon until I was twelve.”

“You didn’t,” says Enjolras incredulously.

“What?” Grantaire protests, all wide-eyed innocence. “They’re an entirely different species and you know it, even if they are responsible for producing your beloved Shakespeare.”

“You’re insane,” Enjolras says, more than a little fondness creeping into his tone.

“You say that as though it’s brand new information.” Grantaire nudges him with a shoulder. “Mister I-can-clap-with-one-hand.”

“It’s a legitimate talent,” Enjolras defends himself, nudging him back. When he turns, Grantaire is looking at him with an undecipherable expression, lips stretched thin in a wide smile.

“I’m curious,” he says, still smiling, “when—or, I guess, how did you get started in this Les Amis business? The crusade to provide free tickets to the poor, I mean.”

“When I was younger,” Enjolras begins, slowly, “I always thought that everybody could afford to go to the theatre on a regular basis. My family—we’re well-off, so it was never a problem for us. I suppose I thought everybody else was the same.”

“And then you found out that wasn’t the case.”

“I did.” Enjolras shifts into a more comfortable position on the grass. “So I sought to change that.”

Grantaire lets out a soft laugh. “That easy, is it?”

“Not as easy as you might think,” replies Enjolras wryly. “There’s a professor in our department named Javert, and he was less than thrilled with the idea. He was more of the ‘those who can pay can go, those who can’t won’t’ type. We had several—disagreements.”

“Wait, no, I think I remember this,” Grantaire says suddenly, and sings, “ _Do we fight for the right to a night at the theatre now?_ ”

“That was Jehan’s idea,” Enjolras mutters, thinking of the admittedly catchy song he’d written and the slogan that had been borne from it. “At any rate, it got the job done.”

“A group of ragtag revolutionaries, you all are,” Grantaire teases, picking up his guitar and beginning to play another song that sounds terribly familiar.

Enjolras shoots him a flat, unimpressed look. “Is that from _Phantom of the Opera_?”

“You know it!” Grantaire grins in delight. “You can sing the Phantom’s part if you’d like.”

“I will do no such thing,” Enjolras sniffs, pulling his laptop close. He doesn’t get anything else written for the remainder of the afternoon, but for once, that doesn’t bother him at all.

 

*

 

Now that Jehan’s taken over more of the directing, Enjolras’ Hamlet turns even more melancholy, something he’d previously thought impossible. There’s less than a week left until opening night, but Jehan finds things to change and things to add (for the better, Enjolras has to admit), and everything grows steadily more frantic as the days pass, with no small thanks to Courfeyrac, who seems intent on adding as many songs to their production as possible. (“Let’s play the _Jaws_ theme every time Claudius shows up,” he suggests, gleeful, until Enjolras kicks him in the shins.)

Grantaire shows up to rehearsals dutifully, helping Feuilly out with the technical and artistic side of things while adjusting to being on stage, minor though his parts may be. Enjolras watches him, makes sure he’s doing okay, but is too busy to seek him out for his company. There are too many things to do, now, and his play goes untouched, left to gather dust in the hard drive of his computer.

Today, they spend an extraordinary amount of time on Ophelia’s funeral scene until Éponine complains of being too stiff (“Although I do adore hearing Enjolras declare his love for me,” she says dryly) and pleads with Jehan to do another scene, any other scene.

So they end up running through the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern scenes—and Joly and Bossuet are having a field day, honestly—until the sun sets and they decide to call it a day. They trek out of the theatre with slumped shoulders and tired smiles, but Enjolras remains behind, wandering backstage and taking a quick inventory of all the props and costumes. It’s monotonous and tedious, but comforting, in some way, to have such control over this one thing, and he remains in the back until he hears the guitar.

He approaches the front, curious. It’s Grantaire, of course, but he’d already known that. He’s singing quietly to himself, selected phrases in between the gentle, steady strumming of his guitar. Enjolras remains behind the curtain.

 _“Oh, I could drink a case of you, darling,”_ Grantaire murmurs, soft and sweet, “ _and I’d still be on my feet.”_

He takes the chance to watch Grantaire. He’s never really had the chance to do so, before, too caught up in his writing. But here—the angle is a little off, and he’s hidden behind the curtains, but he can still see—he can finally look at him as he’s playing for the first time. Grantaire sways to the music, trailing off into a hum, fingers steady and confident as he changes chords. The lights are dim, so his face is cast in shadow, but he’s—it’s—still breathtaking, nonetheless.

“Are you coming?” Grantaire’s voice cuts through the silence. Enjolras steps out from behind the curtain, arching an eyebrow.

At his questioning look, Grantaire says, “Your bag is still out here.” He gestures towards it with the head of his guitar. “Combeferre told me to make sure you got home at a decent hour? Something about your tendency to lurk in the theatre the week before opening night, or something.” He breaks into a wide grin. “I _told_ you you’d be perfect as the Phantom.”

Enjolras wrinkles his nose at him and nimbly hops off the stage, looping the straps of his bag around his shoulders. “That was a nice song,” he says offhandedly.

“Oh? Yeah,” mutters Grantaire, turning away and packing his guitar in its case. He slings his guitar over his shoulder and juts his chin at the ceiling. “Great acoustics in this place.”

“I’d hope so,” remarks Enjolras as they lock up for the evening. They make the familiar walk to the bus stop. “You’ve done well,” he tries, “in the production. You’ve never acted before?”

“I was a tree, once,” Grantaire says, grinning at him. “The best tree there ever was.”

Enjolras doesn’t get a chance to reply as his bus approaches the stop. “I’ll see you,” he says, a little awkwardly, as the bus doors open in front of him. Grantaire raises a hand in acknowledgment as he boards the bus.

He takes a window seat towards the back, facing the bus stop. He gazes out the window, watching Grantaire, who’s fiddling with his iPod and sticking the ear buds in his ears. As the bus pulls away, he catches himself shifting in his seat to keep him in sight. Like this, alone at the bus stop with only his music for company, he looks impossibly young and lonely.

Enjolras turns away.

 

*

 

Saturday morning, a little bit after eight, less than twelve hours until opening night. It’s cloudy outside, and dim, the threat of rain looming in the sky. Enjolras finds himself in the theatre, dark and dusty, sitting in the back row.  The set pieces are finished, sitting proudly onstage. Here, he can take the time to admire the work that had gone into it—the work of Feuilly and Bahorel’s hands, and Grantaire’s, too.

Grantaire, though. God, even the thought of his name gives him a headache. He digs his phone out of his pocket, halfheartedly reading the last texts they’d sent to each other. His face scrunches up in frustration, and he abruptly gets to his feet, suddenly needing to get out, to go—anywhere.

Thunder crackles overhead, but he pays it no mind, intent on grabbing a quick breakfast. He ducks into the bakery that Jehan adores, standing at the back of the short queue. There’s a small, red radio on the counter, tucked behind the cash register, playing an old Édith Piaf song. He smiles faintly; it’s one of his mother’s favorites.

He leaves with two croissants in a paper bag and a cup of strong, steaming coffee. He takes a small sip, wincing only slightly when he burns his tongue. The theatre comes into view, and he quickens his pace.

But there’s somebody standing outside, lingering near the door and looking awkward. Enjolras approaches, and blinks at him.

“Grantaire?” he calls, and Grantaire turns to face him, hands in his pockets. “What are you doing here?”

“On my way home, actually.” Upon closer inspection, Enjolras can see that he’s wearing old gym clothes, ratty and damp with sweat. “But I was passing by, and, I don’t know, thought I’d see if anybody was here. Of course _you_ are,” he says, grinning fondly at him, “at half-past-eight on a Saturday morning.”

“And what about you?” Enjolras’ gaze lands on the black duffel bag slung over his shoulder. “Art… things?”

“Nope,” Grantaire answers cheerfully, unzipping his bag to reveal boxing gloves. “Couldn’t sleep, and I hadn’t gone in a while, so.”

Enjolras stares at them. “You box?”

“A little bit, yeah. That’s how I know Bahorel. He never mentioned it?”

“No,” murmurs Enjolras, and startles at the sensation of a rain drop hitting him squarely on the nose. He glances up; the rain is coming down quickly, now, and heavier. He can hear the droplets as they hit the rooftops and he can see, out of the corner of his eye, others rushing into the nearest buildings for cover. “Come on, hurry,” he says, and seeks shelter inside the theatre.

He reclaims his earlier seat at the back row, and Grantaire finds his place next to him. Enjolras takes another sip of coffee before biting down on his croissant. He hesitates, and then holds out half.

“Would you like some?”

Grantaire shakes his head. “That’s not nearly enough for you.”

“There’s another one in the bag.” Enjolras shows him. “Just take it.”

Bemused, Grantaire does, taking a small bite. He swallows, and then asks, “So what exactly are you doing here? Don’t think much has changed since a couple of nights ago.”

“It’s something I’ve always done.” Enjolras reaches for the second croissant. “Force of habit, maybe. I like the theatre; it’s a second home to me. Especially when we’re so close to opening night. I suppose I find comfort in checking to make sure everything’s still in place.”

“Classic obsessive-compulsive disorder,” Grantaire teases. Enjolras hums and finishes his croissant. They’ve run out of things to talk about, it seems, and Enjolras watches as Grantaire sags against the seat, head lolling back and exposing the curve of his neck.

It’s the feeling that he gets when he’s reading a play for the first time, and he’s absorbing the words, all of the words, studying the characters and learning them by what they say and what they don’t say, imagining how the words would appear when performed on stage, and, oh _god_ but it’s on the tip of his tongue, barely out of reach, and—

“Oh,” he says out loud, and the paper bag falls to the ground, “Grantaire, do you have feelings for me?”

Grantaire shoots up straight in his seat, eyes wide and shoulders tense. Enjolras is reminded of a stray kitten he’d found as a boy, terrified and angry and ready to lash out at the world.

“It’s okay,” he starts, but Grantaire cuts him off with an empty laugh.

“No, don’t, you don’t need to let me down _easy_.” He can see Grantaire retreating into himself. “I—just—yeah, okay, it’s impossible not to love you, you know? It was never going to amount to anything. It was just something I’d planned on finishing on my own, whatever, I won’t make things weird for you, but. I’ll leave. If you want me to, I will—”

“Will you shut up for one fucking second?” Enjolras has seized both of his hands in his. They’re larger than his, cold and clammy at the moment. He turns his hands over, tracing the lines of his palms. His fingers are calloused, probably from playing the guitar, and his knuckles are scarred, perhaps from the fencing and the boxing. There’s paint beneath his fingernails, too, and croissant flakes on the inner curve of his thumb.

“You surprise me,” he says, not for the first time. “I feel like I’ve got you figured out, and then you do something, or say something, and it’s as though I don’t know you at all.” Grantaire is watching him with something that’s afraid to be hope. “On the other hand, I feel as though you know me entirely too well.”

“What are you trying to say?” Grantaire is still tense in his seat, uneasiness evident in the lines of his face. Reluctantly, he pulls away, balling his hands into fists in his lap.

Enjolras does the same, staring at his feet. “You’re—you’re so infuriating,” he bursts out, more than a little petulant. “I don’t understand you at all. I don’t know your story. But things are more— _interesting_ , when you’re around. When you’re around, things are. Well. They’re better. Worse, sometimes,” he amends quickly, thinking about the sorry mess that their _Hamlet_ had become. “But mostly—better.”

It’s silent for a long time, and he fidgets in his seat, unable to look up. Courfeyrac would laugh at him if he could see him now, flustered and betrayed by his precious words.

When he finally does look up, Grantaire is staring at him with something akin to wonder in his eyes. “I’m just—me,” he says, softly. “I’m not going to wake up and become somebody new, someone who’s ambitious and idealistic and—well, _you_.” Enjolras follows his eyes as they trace his jaw, his lips, his neck, his hands. Grantaire looks away and shrugs, a little helplessly. “At the end of the day, I’m just an asshole who happens to have a lot of hobbies. You seem to think that there’s more. What if there isn’t?”

“Then there isn’t,” says Enjolras, and Grantaire finally, _finally_ looks back at him.

“You seem awfully confident about all of this,” he says.

“I am confident in everything that I do. I consider it to be one of my biggest strengths,” Enjolras retorts, and maybe he’s a little afraid, too. But Grantaire smiles at him, just a little, and lets out a quiet breath. Enjolras feels lighter than he has in ages.

And then Grantaire reaches for his hand, but stops short, so that their pinkies are barely touching. Enjolras lets out an annoyed huff before pressing his hand against his, staring resolutely at the empty stage all the while.

A few seconds later, Grantaire squeezes his hand back. Enjolras closes his eyes and smiles.

 

*

 

The crowd is decidedly younger, Enjolras notes distantly at curtain call, surveying the audience after he takes his final bow. The applause is deafening; the people are on their feet, and he looks out across the full house with a sharp sense of satisfaction. He even makes sure to throw a lingering glance in Professor Javert’s direction, whose sour expression had only intensified as the play progressed.

He can’t find it in himself to care too much. Not with the rush of adrenaline that opening night always brings, not with Combeferre and Courfeyrac sporting matching grins of triumph beside him, not when Grantaire is a few feet away from him, smiling widely and waving enthusiastically at the audience. The curtain falls across the stage as the applause begins to die off, and they go backstage.

Amidst taking off costumes and wiping away make-up, Grantaire finds his way to Enjolras’ side. “That was,” he says, entirely too gleeful, “better than an opera. I would say it was better than _Phantom of the Opera_ , even.”

Enjolras lets out a pained groan as he hangs up his costume. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t,” retorts Grantaire, mostly confident but just a little uncertain. Enjolras catches it.

“No, I don’t,” he sighs, and Grantaire smiles and bumps his shoulder.

They go out for drinks, after, as has become their custom after every opening night. They crowd into the back room of their favorite establishment, alcohol and laughter flowing freely. Enjolras takes a seat in a booth, watching his ridiculous friends fondly.

“We did well,” Combeferre says, sliding into the seat opposite him.

“We did,” agrees Enjolras, raising his glass. “Although I did think Javert was going to have a stroke when the music started playing.”

“His face turned the loveliest purple color, didn’t it?” Combeferre takes a drink. “Quite a good turnout, though.”

“I suppose news of our unique _interpretation_ must have gotten around.” Enjolras casts his gaze around the room, landing on the individual responsible for their revised interpretation. Grantaire is standing with Bahorel and Feuilly, relaxed and laughing easily. Enjolras is struck by the sudden urge to stand with him. It’s nothing he’s ever really felt before. It’s a puzzling feeling.

Combeferre follows his line of vision and raises his eyebrows.

Enjolras primly takes another sip of his drink.

Without a word, Combeferre stands and makes towards the rest of the group, but not before patting him on the shoulder. Enjolras makes a face at his retreating back.

And then Grantaire’s slipping into Combeferre’s vacated seat, a half-empty glass in his hand, smiling a little drunkenly. Enjolras welcomes him, sharing a smile.

A thought occurs to him. “Hey—may I ask you a question?”

Grantaire blinks at him. “Yeah. Of course, always.”

“It’s just,” Enjolras purses his lips. “You don’t even like the theatre. I know you don’t. I heard you tell Bahorel earlier, that you’ve only been to a handful of shows and you weren’t crazy about them. Yet you continued to show up. Why?”

Grantaire laughs. “Yeah, well. Couldn’t stay away.”

“Grantaire,” he begins. He knows actions speak louder than words, but he treasures words more than anything else, and needs to hear them directly from Grantaire’s mouth.

But Grantaire has other plans, as he always does. He smiles—that infuriating smile—and reaches for Enjolras’ hand, loops their fingers together, tugs him across the table and answers him without saying a word.

Enjolras listens.

 

*

 

“ _Yes,_ ” screeches Courfeyrac, fist-pumping. “Yes, yes, _fucking yes_.”

Behind him, some not-so-discreet exchange of money occurs amongst the group. Enjolras rolls his eyes.

“Did everybody know about this before I did?” he demands.

“Dude,” Bahorel says, “he wasn’t exactly being subtle, you know?”

“He’s right,” Grantaire chimes in from behind him, “I really wasn’t.”

“Like when he was serenading you at the park,” Cosette adds helpfully.

Enjolras resists the urge to pull his hair. “Did everybody see that?”

“You were at the _park_ ,” Courfeyrac says exasperatedly, at the same time that Marius says, “Courf sent us pictures!”

“ _Not cool,_ ” Courfeyrac hisses at Marius as Enjolras begins stalking towards him. Once he’s satisfied with the cowering and pleading mess in front of him, and they’re out of earshot, Enjolras lets up, giving Courfeyrac a little more breathing room.

“You knew,” he says, lowly. Courfeyrac shoots him a puzzled look before his meaning registers.

“Oh. Yeah, I did,” he says, darting a quick look at Grantaire. “Was one of the first to pick it up, probably? I thought it was just a small crush at first, but then it wasn’t, and I wasn’t really sure about you. You’re an unpredictable bastard, you know that?” He grins at him. “And then things started to fit, and. I… hoped, I guess.”

Enjolras nods, mulling over the information.

“You’re happier now, though,” Courfeyrac offers. “More relaxed, I think. Not as stick-up-your-ass about life, you know?”

“Thank you for that apt description of me.”

“You’re welcome,” says Courfeyrac cheerily. “And you two—so far, everything’s been good?”

Enjolras watches Grantaire laugh at something Éponine’s just said, and then punch Feuilly in the arm two seconds later. He thinks of how far they’ve come, of how much he’s learned. “Yes,” he murmurs, “everything’s been good.”

Courfeyrac slings a heavy arm around his shoulders. “I think you two will be okay,” he says. “Endlessly amusing, never a dull moment, you’ll have daily arguments over the merits of the theatre, but you’ll be okay.”

“Yes,” Enjolras says slowly, dragging his eyes away from Grantaire. “I think so, too.”

“It will be an adventure,” says Courfeyrac solemnly, tightening his hold on him and leaning in to whisper in his ear. “An adventure of _love_.”

Enjolras shoves him off.

 

*

 

A couple of nights later, they’re at Grantaire’s apartment, which is still as dusty and haphazard as ever. Enjolras sinks back against the battered couch, inhaling deeply. Grantaire’s making coffee in the kitchen, and the scent tickles his nostrils.

Enjolras takes his coffee black, even this late in the evening, and Grantaire places one of his better mugs on the coffee table in front of him. Enjolras glances at it, and then at Grantaire’s decidedly Irish version, and cocks an eyebrow. Grantaire takes an exaggerated sip; Enjolras rolls his eyes and returns to his writing, laptop balanced on his thighs.

Grantaire’s got the TV on at a low hum, loud enough that he can hear what’s going on, but quiet enough that Enjolras isn’t distracted. During the commercials, he picks up his guitar and plays a series of chord progressions that aren’t unpleasant to the ear.

Then he starts to play in earnest, and the song sounds awfully familiar. Enjolras frowns as he tries to remember where he’s heard it.

“What are you playing?” he asks, finally.

“A song,” says Grantaire nonchalantly.

“Yes, I can hear that,” Enjolras huffs. “But what—” He breaks off. “No. _No_.”

Grantaire fails to hide his smile.

“No,” repeats Enjolras, insistent. “Will you ever stop playing Taylor Swift songs in front of me?”

“Oh, but she _is_ somewhat responsible for our relationship.”

“She is _not_.”

Grantaire only plays louder.

“You are ridiculous,” Enjolras mutters.

Grantaire cocks an eyebrow at him.  “And yet you’re still here.”

“That may change if you _don’t stop playing her songs_.”

“Hey, it’s gotten you pretty far in your writing, hasn’t it?”

“Not really,” Enjolras denies, even though he’s well into Act III. Grantaire, in response, chooses to stand up and draw closer, strumming his guitar with more force than is probably necessary.

“ _You are the best thing that’s ever been mine_ ,” he sings in Enjolras’ ear, grinning widely. And there is, admittedly, an infinitesimal part of him that is rather touched by it. He is, as Courfeyrac has pointed out numerous times, being _serenaded_ , and he’s not completely insensible to that sort of gesture.

But he’s not exactly the type of person to show it, either, so instead, he reaches for a pillow at the end of the couch and throws it at Grantaire’s face.

But Grantaire understands, setting his guitar on the floor and then falling against him and laughing into his shoulder. He is warm, pressed against his side, even if it does make typing difficult.

“Oh, sorry—is this okay?” Grantaire catches a glimpse of his accidental keysmash on the screen and moves to give him more room.

“Yes,” Enjolras blurts out, far too quickly. Grantaire startles at it. “Yes—just, come here.”

Grantaire’s answering smile is blinding.

 

*

 

(For the record, Grantaire never does stop playing Taylor Swift. In fact, he takes an unholy sort of glee in playing her songs when Enjolras least expects it.

But if Enjolras gets enough vodka in his system, he’ll admit, with a bit of prying, that her songs have sort of grown on him, and that Grantaire is—well, “he’s worth it, the bastard.”

Courfeyrac has it on video.)

**end**

 

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve put together a mix of the songs that were referenced in the story, plus a few more. The mix can be found [here](https://8tracks.com/fireblazie/it-s-a-love-story-baby-just-say-yes/)!
> 
> In all honesty, there are too many references to count. If you recognize it, it’s probably from a book, or a song, or a fandom thing. Feel free to ask if there’s something in particular you’d like to know, though!
> 
> I will say that the title comes from the song “Love Story” by Taylor Swift.
> 
> And, of course, a million thanks goes out to [nuitdenovembre](http://nuitdenovembre.tumblr.com/), who is the best beta in the world and was endlessly patient with me and metaphorically held my hand throughout the whole thing. You are, as always, the bestest.


End file.
